The Inside Job (19 page)

“I don't want to
always
be thinking of the mission. I don't want to always put it first. I don't want SRS to own me forever. I don't want to be like Mom and Dad,” I said, and the words fell out of my mouth before I realized that maybe that wasn't the best thing to say in front of my little sister. I was relieved when Annabelle bounded out of the darkness toward us with Kennedy's rock in her mouth. She dropped it at our feet and looked pleased.

“Good girl, Annabelle,” Kennedy said, ruffling the dog's ears. I walked over to do the same, and we listened for a few minutes to the sound of the ponies munching and Annabelle panting.

“I shouldn't have said that about Mom and Dad. I'm sorry,” I said when even animal noises couldn't lift the weight between us.

“Don't be sorry. I'm mad at them too,” Kennedy said, sighing heavily. “I still miss them. I still love them. I just wish they were here.”

I exhaled and then put my arm around Kennedy's shoulders. We continued along the path.

“You know, though, that SRS doesn't really own you, right, Hale?” she asked as we rounded the bottom of the pasture and started back toward the farmhouse.

“I guess,” I said.

“They don't. Because if we were at SRS, you wouldn't be worried about any of this stuff. You'd just follow orders.”

I looked down at Kennedy and frowned. Then I almost smiled. “I guess you have a point.”

She nodded. “That's what makes us different. All of us. And that's when everyone else at SRS will start leaving and joining us—when they can't help but worry about right and wrong and good and bad. They'll join us, and it'll be great because then the whole hall at The League will be full, and we can all pick out a song to wake up to in the morning, like they do at camp.”

“Wait, what?”

“At camp? In the movies, when they blast a song over the loudspeaker? It'll be like that,” Kennedy said, looking pleased.

“Right. You have to be the one to tell Otter about that plan though,” I said, and we finally climbed the steps back up to the farmhouse. Annabelle jumped on Clatterbuck hard enough to knock him over, like she'd missed him horribly while we were gone, and then Kennedy hauled Annabelle off to her bedroom. While I brushed my teeth, I heard Kennedy and Beatrix trying to get Annabelle to leap between the beds without touching the floor. The frequent crashes told me she was no more of an athlete than I was.

Then I went and sat in the kitchen for a moment, looking at Beatrix's equipment and Ben's inventions and the blueprints of the bank and the stack of glasses and plates by the sink from dinner, because if there was one thing every League agent could agree on, it was how gross doing the dishes was.

Back at SRS, my parents did the dishes in the evening, and the cafeteria staff did them at lunch.

Back at SRS, there was a fancy lab for inventions, with sleek electronics and supercomputers.

Back at SRS, I was an agent in training. I was Hale the Whale.

I realized, sitting there and looking at the pile of dirty dishes, that maybe Kennedy was right. Maybe all those
things that I was made out of—SRS agent, Hale the Whale, and League agent who hated doing dishes—were just parts of who I was. I was a spy. I was a former SRS agent. I was a current League agent. And I was a hero—or at least, I was trying to be one, and that was something.

But despite all that . . . maybe I needed to be a better friend.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The next morning, we concluded that we needed as many details as Hastings would give us before coming up with even a loose bank plan. We left the Runanko books in the trunk of the car and opted not to tell Hastings we had them with us, just in case he tried to pull something and get the books without trading us the information. Much to Kennedy's—and, I'll be honest, everyone else's—dismay, we'd brought Annabelle with us to give her back to Hastings.

“You have the books? Really? You really, really have them?” Hastings asked, his eyes globelike with surprise and wonder. He totally ignored Annabelle, who looked around heavily at her former home, then slumped onto the floor, like the very building zapped her energy. Ben
and Kennedy sat down with her and petted her quietly, I think secretly hoping that if they laid low, Hastings would forget about Annabelle entirely and we'd be able to take her back with us.

I said, “We do. They were stolen by SRS, as it turns out. That clown that came over was a deep-cover agent.”

Hastings shook his head. “Wait—SRS has the books?
And
they're blackmailing me? And their agents are
clowns
?”

“The two situations might not even be related. The books were stolen long before you started working at the bank—long before you inherited your grandmother's possessions. SRS was on something of an art theft spree at the time, trying to have a nice stockpile of assets that could be sold or bargained with,” Otter said.

“They had the books
and
my secret. That's . . . well, it's genius, frankly,” Hastings said, pacing, his face contorted with a sort of impressed anger.

Otter went on, “Well, all this means, Mr. Hastings, that you can have your books, and you can sell them and buy your own private SRS-free island somewhere.”

“An island!” Hastings said, his face lighting up. “I could! I could sell this dump and the books and that dog and get an
island
—”

“You're going to sell Annabelle?” Beatrix asked, horrified. She dropped down beside Kennedy and flung her
arms around the dog. Annabelle smacked her lips in response.

“Who cares? She's just a fancy mutt anyway! And besides, on my island, I'll have . . . monkeys. Yes! No, cats. Cats are easier than monkeys, aren't they? Maybe no animals. Parrots!” Hastings said in a frenzy of wealth-dreaming glee. I glanced at Walter warily, and he gave me a look that said,
I can't wait to be finished with this guy
.

“Me either,” I muttered.

“What?” Hastings asked. I shrugged, and he went on, “So, SRS's account numbers, right?”

“Yes,” Otter said. “We want to know where the money is now, and where it's going to be. And I want to know the bank's security procedures.”

“Okay . . . ,” Hastings said, wandering toward the living room. He sat down on the couch, Otter took out a legal pad to take notes, and Beatrix held her hand anxiously over her Right Hand. “SRS has its money in three places at the bank. A third of it is in gold bars. A third of it is in cash. And a third is just digital, really—not sitting in a vault anywhere. That's the money they use for day-to-day operations.”

Otter nodded. “All right—and who decides where the money goes?”

“I do, mostly. Every now and then they'll ask me to do something specific with it—put it all in an account here or
there—but I think that's usually when they're trying to fool a background check. They can make people appear to be millionaires, you know. The digital money is easy to move around. The physical money is trickier. Sometimes it's in private vaults, sometimes safe deposit boxes, and sometimes it's in the main vault with the rest of the cash.”

“Shocking,” Otter said drily. “So, you could feasibly put it all in one giant private vault for us to rob?”

Hastings frowned. “Well, no. They'd notice if everything was put in one place, I'm sure. I could have the gold moved to . . . to the safe deposit boxes, maybe? It's about thirty million in gold bars. I could spread those out among safe deposit boxes, so it'd all be in the same room. The boxes would be easier to rob.”

“All right—what about the cash?” Otter asked.

“The cash is always in either the main vault, which is basically impossible to rob, or in a private vault, which is . . . also impossible to rob. Well—impossible without having an access card.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a card. “Like this one.”

Otter smiled dangerously. “Then we'll need you to give that to us.”

“It's not that easy—it's the card, plus a retinal scan, plus a guard will check the weight of everyone going in and out of the vault to make sure it hasn't increased. No one's allowed back there but bank employees, and the guards know us all by name. Unless you're planning to go in with
a gun, you can't get into that vault.
But
. . . I can go in. I can go get the money for you.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. So far I'd seen Hastings commit exactly zero selfless acts, and he had to know we couldn't afford to pay him . . . “Ah, you want a cut of the money.”

“No,” Otter said. “Not a chance. You've gotten your reward, Hastings. You have your books back. How could you possibly need yet more money?”

“Fine, fine,” Hastings grumbled. “You'll never get into the vault though. Even with my help, you'd need SRS to call and authorize me to move that amount of money from the vault.”

I glanced at Beatrix, who nodded quickly. She could fake the authorization, but . . . Hastings was right. The vault would be tricky.

Otter went on, “Anyway—the digital money?”

“I guess you could do a massive withdrawal and get it in cash? But no, that wouldn't work—there's actually not enough cash in the bank on a given day to cover that amount.”

“What if we moved it to another digital account? An account
we
own?” I asked.

Hastings considered this. “That would work. Though the bank might get suspicious—it's a little suspect for a thirty-million-dollar account to appear out of nowhere. Unless, of course, a banker has cleared it.” He smiled again, terribly.

“Mr. Hastings, we're not paying you to help us. You
agreed
to help us in return for the Runanko books,” Otter said firmly.

“Well, maybe I didn't know how much work helping you would entail!” Hastings pouted. “What are you going to do with all this money anyway? You also want a private island?” Hastings asked, looking between the seven of us.

“That's up for some debate,” I said.

“Space camp!” Ben said brightly.

“You mean like . . .
in
space? Because this is a lot of money,” Hastings said.

I smiled politely. “We're going to use it to do good. SRS has done a lot of bad, and we want to undo it.”

“All right, all right . . . ,” Hastings said. But he was fidgeting, which wasn't a good sign. Hastings was starting to realize how plausible it was for us to rob a bank—and how plausible it was for him to either get in on it or get in our way.

“How much do you want?” I asked suddenly. Everyone turned to look at me, surprised. I repeated the question, and added, “You help us get the cash out. What's your cut?”

“
Now
you sound like bank robbers!” Hastings said in a voice that delighted him and depressed me. All this time hoping my parents weren't thieves, and here I was becoming one. “Forty percent,” Hastings said.

“No,” Otter and I answered immediately.

Hastings shrugged. “Well, you can maybe rob the bank on your own. But if you've already stolen the books from SRS, I bet they'll be on the lookout for you—so getting in without my help would be hard. In fact, I hope no one
tips SRS off
about your plans—”

Otter was across the room, one fist raised to Hastings, before I even realized what was happening. For an older guy, he could really move. He had Hastings's collar in one hand, using it to pull the man closer to his face. Otter's teeth were bared, and his eyes were lit up.

“Are you threatening us, Mr. Hastings? After all we've done for you? After we returned what SRS stole?” Otter hissed.

Clatterbuck cleared his throat, like he thought perhaps he should intervene, but then he didn't. Violence wasn't really The League's
thing
, but I wasn't particularly sad about seeing Hastings roughed up.

Hastings coughed and flailed his arms a bit until Otter released him and took a step back; Otter's nostrils were flared like a bull's. “No, no,” Hastings said, scrambling back into a chair. “No. Of course not.”

“Excellent. In that case, we'll be in touch for the various account numbers. You'll need to get to work making sure all those accounts are open and working smoothly. Ah, and the safe deposit boxes—we'll need those numbers too,” Otter said shortly, turning to walk away.

“Wait! When do I get my books?” Hastings called out.

“When we have the account numbers,” Otter said, then to the rest of us, added, “Let's go, everyone. We've got to figure out how to rob a bank.”

We rose and moved to the door, and Annabelle started to follow us. When Kennedy told her to “sit” and “stay,” the dog looked alarmed and then let out a heartbreaking, low whine. Even Otter flinched.

“It'll be okay, Kennedy. Come on,” Beatrix said quietly. Kennedy's eyes were big and watery; I moved so she could be first out the front door and cry without Hastings hearing. I made the mistake of looking back at Annabelle as I rounded up the end of our line. She was lying with her giant head in her paws, ears up and brows knitted together worriedly. And she was drooling, but even though I
knew
it was drool, it still looked like she was actually lying in a puddle of tears.